When You Wish Upon a
Star
—Recall how you were at the beginning of a love-relationship that initially held incredible promise and that seemed magical…
Quotes about wishes:
Your wishes are like birds; if you cage them, they will not fly. ~Lao Tzu
Our wishes are a glimpse of our potential. ~Anonymous
A normal human being … does not exist. ~Karen Horney
Audio Version
In the beginning. . .
Recall how you were at the beginning of a love-relationship that initially held incredible promise and that seemed magical. Chances are that you experienced your relationship to your lover as an unbelievably special found treasure. At the outset everything he or she said and did seemed a moment of pure grace. You and the treasured other resonate and vibrate with and in every moment. You knew each other’s thoughts, gestures, and ways of being—at least that’s what you believed. Every moment is filled with pure bliss. What is described above is, I admit, the ultimate extreme: a realization of the highest Dream and it is manifest!. For sure, there are indeed ‘transcendent’ moments, even if only in fleeting glimmers! And these moments are glimmers of possibility. That is, if you can remember this ‘high dream’ manifestation this may—well, at least occasionally—sustain you through the challenging relational work ahead, and it certainly does inform you about your highest dream for relationship. What needs to grow is your awareness of where you are in relation to your high dream and addressing the path and process to move towards the realization of that highest of dreams. On chilly, grey, and desolate days, it is very helpful to remember the warm sunny days that you once experienced.
I recall as a testosterone laden and extremely naïve 16-year-old boy being invited to a party. I was beyond awkward and shy. One of the girls asked me to dance. The room was dark, and, in those days, slow close dancing was the norm. The music had a most spellbinding sound. I was totally smitten with Lindsey whom I had known for about one minute. After this experience I could not stop thinking about her at almost all hours of the day and night. She had given me her phone number (this was pre-email, pre-text days). This phone number was a very fiery item in my pocket. I was terrified to call her. I would slowly dial her number (rotary dial phones in those days), pause before dialing the last number, and then I would hang up. After numerous false starts over several days, I let the phone ring. Nobody answered! And in those days, there were no answering machines. Eventually, I called again, and this time she picked up. I was tongue-tied, but I managed to blurt out enough words to arrange a date. I was overcome with fear and excitement, and I was inundated with my plans to marry her! We had one more date. After that she no doubt realized that she had a total beginner on her hands, and politely and kindly withdrew from the field. I was miserable, but I, too, eventually began to realize that I had no idea what was driving me into those incredible dreams about someone I knew nearly nothing about! Only years later, I had a sophisticated enough understanding of human psychology to know that I was conflating my strong and overwhelming feelings and dreams about a person with the reality of that person. It took me decades to work on growing through all this and begin to have some handle on myself and my relational life. Well, I don’t hesitate to tell you that I am still working on it!
I have seen similar dreaming at various levels occurring in my clients of both sexes and gender and preference options. Many of them were totally convinced that person they were beginning to be with was their soulmate and someone that they must have. It is easy enough to dismiss such longings and dreaming as immaturity. However, such labelling does not provide any help for the smitten, although it is certainly a common way of labelling those who are in the thrall of such dreams. I believe that the image of a perfect connection to another is seeded and germinated from the womb and well into the earliest days of existence in the external world. What is missing is the consciousness under whose guidance such dreams can be ripened into inner work and very whole relationship. It is perhaps fair to name such inner work as spiritual work. I am reminded of a statement from Dr. Reginald Ray the Tibetan Buddhist scholar and practitioner who broadened my understanding with this statement, “Psychological work is spiritual work.”
I most certainly was possessed by the Archetype of the Feminine Goddess and from there set out on a long journey of inner and outer learning. In looking back, from either the perspective of failed relationship(s) and troubled or troubling relationship experience it is important to ask questions like: “What went wrong; and how did it go wrong?” And perhaps more importantly, “What was I actually seeking? Now, returning to our original question: how could a relationship once so passionately charged run out of steam and turn flat, boring, uninspiring, and dissatisfying? I have the view that variations on such experiences have good possibility for learning, growth, and enhanced intimacy and connection in the context of any important relationship.
Relationship Phases . . .
Rather than relationship stages I prefer to think in terms of phases, processes, and edges: below, I have put these identifiers in a common order, even though back-and-forth is not unusual. Even skipping some frames may happen for some people. Running into ‘edges’ is very common and all too familiar to most. An edge is apparent when a familiar pattern is playing out. An edge can be described as the endpoint of the ‘known universe;’ the edge of what each person knows as who they are and what they can or cannot do or be. Edge work is central to personal and relational growth. If one cannot go over one’s personal edge, no further growth can be expected, at least not without examining your edge experience.
- The initial phase very often seems to be the realization of your biggest dream: an archetypal idea that seems to be built into you and that fulfills your longing for blissful union with another being. within each of us at birth there is a dream of what the greatest and most blissful relationship is, and that is initially with caregivers, especially with the biological mother who births us. This initial dream may then extend to family, peers, teachers, religious leaders, and, central to this discussion, our most intimate partner. This ‘biggest dream’ can be seen as a return to the earliest bliss and oceanic feeling of the womb where there is no feeling of difference; a dream come true. And surely, there are variations of experience with the oceanic bliss possibility in the womb. Some pregnant mothers and foetuses may experience rather difficult and challenging intra-uterine conditions. And as life progresses early ‘disappointments may well ferment a growing darker view of possibilities with ongoing exposure to persons in positions of significance to us.
- Then comes the shock phase in which the couple, now being released from the strong spell of attraction, notice deviations from what was initially seen and/or overlooked in the other. The bliss of oneness is disrupted once more, like the shock of birth, all over again. Each party exclaims: “Is this the same person with whom I fell in love, madly?” You might see this as analogous to the moment of birth, indeed a shocking experience.
- The phase of disillusionment may become ongoing and threaten to become a permanent feature of the relationship. The recognition dawns that the other does not supply, and may never supply, what one thought was the initial incredible great promise. Each party exclaims: “What was I thinking when I chose this person and made my promise of being together through thick and thin, and forever? “The light has gone out of each other’s eyes and when the partners look, if they still do, at each other they feel dark despair or worse, they feel nothing.
- The decision phase. Should I stay? Should I leave? Shall I sit in my confusion? How about seeking help? Is this darkness the end, the death, of relationship? Or can it be the new beginning? Shall I try and work on this relationship with this person? This all depends on whether you have been or are willing to make a descent into the Shadow side of yourself, your partner, and of all existence. Starting new with another or just being alone seems very appealing. Of course, the tendency for the same patterns to show up in a new relationship is very strong
Many of you may have already gone well past these phases and find yourself one way or another already in the thick of the aftermath. The possibility of the relationship ending is most usually complexified by numerous factors: children, finances, multiple factors of engagement materially, psychologically, spiritually, a complex mixture of feelings, not to mention the sheer energy required to separate a relationship and possibly a household that has existed for a lengthy period.
Descending into the Personal Shadow in Search of Your Core of Being
How is that the great and beautiful becomes ordinary, and even worse? How is it that you become increasingly less interested in and unresponsive to the overtures from your partner. What went wrong? How did this great dream darken? How can it be brought back to life? Can it be revivified?
What we are lacking is the hard to come by experience of interactive attunement. This is the effort to be in harmony with another, particularly your most intimate partner. This attunement is the effort to repurpose the early attachment that you experienced, good, bad, and most likely some combination of both in a grown-up relationship. Do remember that grown-up does not mean the same as mature or whole. Of course, we are all looking for the ideal bonding that we needed as infants, toddlers, and small children to be available in adult form. Many experiences intervene in this possibility. The tendency of babies, toddler, and children is to complain in the ways that they can and will often show up in adult-like forms, or perhaps this might better be named as ‘big-person’ form and not at all in an adult and mature form. The challenge in dealing with is our tendency to recreate the dynamics in a form that is unworkable self and/or other blaming, and to be unable or even unaware of any capacity within us to take responsibility for the way things are, and the strong inclination and patterning of blaming yourself and/or your intimate other.
Assuming you are willing to make a descent into the darkness in search of your own light that went dim and that still exists even if you neither believe this, or believe it is just too hard to reclaim and grow. This act of re-searching oneself is rather rare. Blaming and holding the other person as responsible for what went wrong is the usual modus operandi of our culture and seems to be deeply impressed into many as a real way to see what is happening. All too often, each partner thinks the other needs to do something about their dimmed light. There is almost certainly some truth in this but this not what you have control over.
How do I turn on my own light? This is a vast topic to which many volumes of writing have been dedicated by scholars, philosophers, and therapists. As a psychotherapist writing this Field Note, I will focus on one particular pathway that runs through these Field Notes. The main ideas are that: seeds of passion, curiosity, vibrance, and zest for life are built into human babies, ready to sprout and be cultivated into the fullest possible blooming. And importantly that these seedlings are still alive within you no matter what stage of life you are in, and even though you may feel deeply wounded, squashed by life, and shy and fearful about risking emergence. Your essence is still there waiting for liberation.
The work of liberating this essence can proceed on two main ‘fronts.’ Initially you can identify the pain points, the anxieties, the fears, the physical pains and illnesses, and inner conflicts. Next you can research and study how these identified points manifest in thoughts, emotions, body sensations, your awareness of your compromised physical and life energy. Most of all, I suggest that you study the recurring patterns of these aspects of you as manifested in situations and circumstances that are known to you as who you are; what I previously noted as egoic structures—our personality, really our multiplicity of personalities.
David Wallin is a psychotherapist, whose work I have been studying for a while, states, wisely I would say: “Everyone is subjective. The important question is are you aware of your own subjectivity.” To become more aware of your subjectivity you will have to cultivate your ability to study yourself, and as you uncover and discover your deeper self you can learn what your deepest and most authentic self is, and is ‘telling’ you. You can increasingly become capable of following yourself and ‘knowing’ your own direction, feel the connection with the universal unknown, and that may well be unknowable, and follow the direction that derives from this source.
What is this Self that is to be followed, and Where is it?
As alluded to in the last Field Note (April 2025), there is something that is core within each of us and perhaps could be identified as the energy source of all the actions, expressions, and ways of being that you express. What we are looking for is the various forms that seem to be expressions of your true nature and whose qualities are fluid, flexible, and have in-the-moment response capacity. According to many scholars, spiritual teachers, and ordinary people—especially mothers who have observed infants closely and lovingly—this core self emerges almost immediately upon the infant’s arrival into the world. Some mothers also report observing specific activity levels and responses to external stimuli that remain consistent as their baby grows and develops.
If we accept that this core self is already present, then we want to be able to keep the path clear for the development and expression of this core self and its expression with and through the various egoic structures as they are developing. We would ideally like them to be freely available for expression of being in the ways that fit and are consistent with nature, particularly this nature that is the child’s unique nature, and it is also consistent with the nature of the world and all of life: certainly, a great vision of possibility.
I invite you to reflect on how your early experiences—whether positive, challenging, or what is most likely, a mixture of both—serve as the foundation for everything that has followed in your life. These formative moments shape the patterns of behavior, tendencies, and ways of being that emerge throughout life, particularly in the relationships that hold the most significance. As you explore and inquire into your own development—including the evolution of your egoic structures and the habitual patterns you engage in—you can gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the forces that dictate your interactions with the world Most importantly remember that your wildest and perhaps most unrealistic dreams and fantasies are the primal forms of what is trying to fully emerge and manifest. They may be your “destiny” that is currently residing in the Shadows of your personal unconscious, and they may be beginnings of a manifestation that the collective unconscious is trying to birth.
The title of this Field Note is When You Wish Upon a Star. I encourage wishing upon a star, your star, and remembering that wishing is not likely going to make it so, but it almost certainly will help you to know what your dreams that are emergences from your unconscious are moving towards. Your night and day dreams along with your awareness and life energy will support your wild imagination and even movement towards the realization of your dreams. Lao-tzu suggested such activity is, being in the Dao.
Great thanks to you, Heesoon, for support with this Field Note.
Shalom to you all,
Avraham
PS I am letting you know that I have lined up two more talented Field Note guest authors:
For July 2025 Chris Nicol, MA, RCC will join us:
In late 2025 or early 2026 Neelam Oik, MC, RCC will join us: